Volunteering in Quito

While in Quito I have been volunteering at a school called `Centro Escolar Experimental San Francisco de Quito`. I am assisting an `English` teacher. The teacher is actually a 25 year old recent graduate of an engineering program from a university in the United States. When he moved back to Ecuador with his family, he could not find a job in his profession, so he took a job as an English teacher. He has been in the position for 3 months. It has been very interesting to observe, and to attempt to help with the classes. Every day the teacher and I go from classroom to classroom, spending about 40 minutes with each class. The scene in the classroom is chaotic. There is no discipline. At any given time about a third of the students are not sitting at their desk, half of them are talking, some of them are fighting, some are in the hallway outside the classroom, some of them are working on unrelated activities, some are at the window talking to other students in the hallway, and several of them are surrounding the teacher trying to get personal attention. The teacher has no control of the class. The students do not listen to him. His attempts to make the students cooperate have not worked. The students actually get about 10 minutes of work done in an hour class. Seeing his frustration I asked if he was open to some suggestions. I admitted that I certainly had no expertise in teaching children but had some general observations that I thought he might find useful. He was very receptive to hearing my observations.
The suggestions I gave him were simple ones based on logic; such as following through with what you say, being consistent, not rewarding students for breaking the rules, sticking with the goal of the lesson, being firm, etc. He implemented some of the suggestions I gave him. At first I did not see any changes in the students` behaviour. However, by the end of this week I started noticing significant changes. The students actually sat in their desks, they were quieter, and they were paying attention. This is a good start. Now perhaps some actual teaching and learning can take place.